Ways of agreeing with negative stance taking
| Panel: | P38 - Knowledge in Social Interaction: Rights and Responsibilities |
| Author: | Sorjonen, Marja-Leena |
| Author 2: | Auli Hakulinen |
| Abstract: | |
| In the paper we discuss the ways in which a claim of epistemic access can be modified by speakers. We focus on the modifications in the design of agreeing responses in Finnish. In the following exchange old men are jointly reminiscing times of war. In line 2, the recipient agrees with the evaluation of the story by repeating twice the negative verb “ei” in the prior turn. 1 S: Ei niitä aikoi tarviis tul[la. NEG.SG3 those times need come Those times should never return. 2 M: [E::::i. e::::i. NEG.SG3 NEG.SG3 By selecting a response type, a repetition of the negative verb, that agrees with the polarity of the preceding utterance, the recipient positions himself as having equal access to knowledge as his co-participant and asserts unconditional agreement. We analyze responses such as the one above that respond to a grammatically negative statement by the co-participant. We will show that when responding, the recipients do more than orient to the display of epistemic access and agreement. They also respond to the type of action the prior turn performed. Thus epistemic stance and agreement are unavoidably intertwined with the action characteristics of the prior negative statement. A mere repetition does not exhaust the response types that assert equal access to the object of stance-taking. We will discuss two other types of response that are congruent with the polarity of the prior utterance: they contain a repetition of the negative verb. We will show that the recipient, while asserting equal epistemic access and agreeing in the same terms with the other speaker, further contextualizes her agreement through selecting one of the alternatives. In delicate cases the recipient may use a positive response to display non-committal stance. What the comparison of the variants shows is that epistemic access, as well as alignment and affiliation, are graded phenomena. |
|
